The new barriers to adoption for your startup
If you have a Internet / Web / Software startup and are looking to either a) raise money or b) hire people or c) sell to your customers or pretty much do anything "normal" any other startup would do you've heard this question before: "But I do this right now with (a) + (b) + (c) + cut and paste..."
Lets say you answer that question with something that buys you 30 seconds from your audience and you get to a demo or better you have an alpha product that you'd like some feedback from potential customers on. Here are some new barriers to adoption that you'll face.
1. Application better work super FAST. Response times have to be immediate, not quick. You'll get this from customers more now thanks to Google. Every application is now expected to have google type response. Regardless of how immature the application is. The only exception is Twitter. What did they do to deserve that billing? Point #2
2. Instant gratification: The users expect to do nothing and get value. I gave you my email, should that not be enough? Figure it out. I give you something I want 10X value back ASAP. I dont blame them at all. As a user myself I have little time for web applications that give me value only after I add 100000 people to my "friends list".
3. Allows users to make mistakes but still works. As in why does your search not recommend things to me? I misspelled "Michael" and forgot the e. Your application should prompt me to the right keyword.
4. Make the first impression seamless: If your first 3-5 clicks / keystrokes are not intuitive or productive, then the user has lost confidence in your site. Used to be in the enterprise software world users were convinced they were doing it wrong and the software was right. Nowadays the users are smarter. Even if they are wrong, then expect the software to get it right.
your thoughts?
Lets say you answer that question with something that buys you 30 seconds from your audience and you get to a demo or better you have an alpha product that you'd like some feedback from potential customers on. Here are some new barriers to adoption that you'll face.
1. Application better work super FAST. Response times have to be immediate, not quick. You'll get this from customers more now thanks to Google. Every application is now expected to have google type response. Regardless of how immature the application is. The only exception is Twitter. What did they do to deserve that billing? Point #2
2. Instant gratification: The users expect to do nothing and get value. I gave you my email, should that not be enough? Figure it out. I give you something I want 10X value back ASAP. I dont blame them at all. As a user myself I have little time for web applications that give me value only after I add 100000 people to my "friends list".
3. Allows users to make mistakes but still works. As in why does your search not recommend things to me? I misspelled "Michael" and forgot the e. Your application should prompt me to the right keyword.
4. Make the first impression seamless: If your first 3-5 clicks / keystrokes are not intuitive or productive, then the user has lost confidence in your site. Used to be in the enterprise software world users were convinced they were doing it wrong and the software was right. Nowadays the users are smarter. Even if they are wrong, then expect the software to get it right.
your thoughts?
My thoughts are you're mostly right. But, if you look at the Silicon Alley Insider top 25 today... There are a LOT of non-intuitive, non-instant gratification players who very definitely get an "F-" if held to your prescription for success. Yet, there they are all $250M+ of them.
If you're providing compelling value it won't matter if you require visitors to click or type 1200 times. Value is value. You are absolutely spot on though, each one of those clicks/keystrokes better be compelling and necessary.
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Dont bug the users with registration or money, they hate doing both. Your service must be login free
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Gerald,
I have to say that's amazing. I agree with you on value.
Bala
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1-4 can be trumped out anytime by:
the startups service is actually useful.
If it is, users don't care for ultrafast response times, rewards, sophisticated usability or fault tolerance. If all of this works just kind of moderate, it will be ok.
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I would agree, especially for the load time bit. Having slow page load times can have a dramatic impact on not only user experience but search engine bots as well. Dropping our load time in half caused most bots to increase their frequency of visiting by more than three fold.
Bala is correct about the registration. Often users are willing to contribute information and the easier you make it for them to do so the better. Initially, we required user registration but now allow users to contribute without logging in. Though we give them incentive to create an account if they so choose.
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